Is Blood Thicker than Moon Metal?
by Tigerclaw
Summary: Dajar Stalks-the-Shadows learns not to trust any Kindred, even ones he thought he knew. Chapter 1 up now more to come. Please R&R!
1. The Assignment

Disclaimer: White Wolf owns the settings and ideas, I merely supply the characters  
  
Dajar looked down at the dance floor from the balcony of the club. Of course the handsome swarthy skinned young man didn't necessarily belong in the VIP section, but he looked like he did. He was tall and lean with deeply tanned skin, black hair and brown eyes. Black leather pants, a tanktop and an unbuttoned, untucked short sleeve dress shirt covered his athletic frame.  
  
Dajar Stalks-the-Shadows was looking for one person in particular, one who was an hour and a half late. Just as the shadow-cat was ready to leave, she sashayed into the club. It was almost as if all activity stopped and focused on her when she walked. Samantha Parker was gorgeous in a way that made most men's brains shut down as the flow of blood in their bodies was diverted somewhere else. Her skin was white and delicate as porcelain. Blue eyes set amidst angelic features that were framed by curled blond tresses that fell to her bare shoulders. An off the shoulder red dress molded to her curves. Dajar felt himself swallow hard. But he resisted the pull, he knew it had supernatural power behind it. She was a Toreador neonate, and odd in that she still had normal sexual function-something she'd been more than happy to show Dajar on occasion.  
  
Tonight was business...Dajar reminded himself. He watched as Samantha walked right past the bouncer guarding the stairs to the VIP section as if he didn't even exist. And to her, he didn't. Leering stares followed her all the way to where she stopped at Dajar's side. That very fact in itself getting Stalks-the-Shadows some rather evil glares. He just stared out at the dance floor, not bothering to look her way.  
  
"You're late." He said by way of introduction. She grinned. He knew it without looking.  
  
"And yet you're still here, my kitten." Samantha teased in a low seductive voice, trailing one of her crimson painted fingernails along his bicep.  
  
"You know most Bastet would kill you for the very merit of your existence, let alone being taunted, my lovely." Dajar shot back.  
  
"Oooh." She said her tone changed to pouty. "Kitten's got claws."  
  
Dajar was beginning to grow impatient. "Why did you call me here Sam? I know it wasn't to play games." He snapped.  
  
"Alright fine." Suddenly she was all business. "There's a new Brujah in town that's been trying to get in good with Prince Oliver. And he's doing it by roughing up some of the Prince's rivals, which just happen to be my clanmates. One in particular was my sire's first childe. She was found staked and chained to a skylight just before dawn and was brought in just in time to avoid being roasted. My sire wants revenge, but to just attack the Brujah outright would be to incur the Prince's wrath. So she sent me to you, hoping that our, um, working relationship could convince you to be so kind as to perform a job for us."  
  
"I don't get involved in politics, especially not politicks." He said, emphasizing the rather unsavory sobriquet that most skinchangers had for the undead. Samantha rubbed the full length of her body up against him and he could feel an unnatural pull at his mind.  
  
"I could throw in a little bonus..." She said, the weight of her words having the impact of a sledgehammer on Dajar's mind and even though he knew it was a vampiric discipline, he found himself nodding his ascent.  
  
"Alright..but if, and only if you two give me some supplies. We'll talk about..." He let his eyes roam over her quickly. "Payment, later."  
  
Samantha clapped and giggled like a schoolgirl. "I just knew you would see things my way. Now follow me!" Samantha grabbed Dajar by the arm and led him through the crowd, people more than happily making way for the sultry young woman. When they exited the club, a red vested valet handed Samantha her car keys and she walked to her car that was already waiting for her at the curb. It was a new shiny Diablo SE, blood red. One of the valets opened the passenger side door for Dajar. It opened up instead of out to reveal a pitch black interior. He got in, nearly sinking into the leather seat and sighing with comfort. Even his own corvette wasn't as nice as this. The valet shut the door after him and Samantha got in the driver side and slammed the door. Upon inserting the key into the ignition, heavy metal music assaulted Dajar's senses from every direction, further disorientation came when suddenly Samantha floored it. The horses under the hood did their job, tires blowing smoke  
and screeching as they tore away from the curb doing zero to sixty in three seconds and nearly running down an old woman just stepping off the curb. Dajar felt himself pressed back in the seat by the sudden acceleration and he made haste to fasten his seatbelt. Samantha drove like a maniac, but with the precision of a city driver, cutting in front of people who showed the slightest hesitation to close a gap, tearing around corners at breakneck speed. Screeching to a stop at traffic lights only to tear off again at hair raising speeds as soon as red dropped to green. When Dajar finally stopped her car outside a tall brownstone and allowed to him to exit the vehicle, he stood on shaky legs for a moment before regaining his cool.  
  
"Come on hot stuff, this is one of my havens. We have any supplies you need right here." Samantha said, striding into the building. Dajar followed close behind. Getting mistaken for a stalker by a Toreador's ghouled bodyguards was not a fun way to die. She led the way to the elevator and then to her tenth story apartment. The inside was as noveau as one would expect from the Clan of the Rose with black leather furniture in a snow white room with impressionist paintings on the wall. She led him past the living room and into the bedroom to stop in front of a closet. Samantha slid the door open to reveal dozens of slinky dresses and even more sheer lingerie, all of which she promptly slid aside to reveal a startling surprise, a wall full of guns and firearm accessories.  
  
"Take your pick." She said. Always one to travel light, he took a PK7 and a silencer/flash suppressor with two clips of 7 rounds each plus one in the pistol itself. More for the ghouls sure to be guarding the schmoe than the schmoe himself.  
  
Samantha went to a desk and scrawled something on a piece of paper, which she then handed to him. It was a name and an address. Dajar had all he needed, now for the hunt itself. 


	2. Afoul of Hunters

Okay loyal fans (ahem...thor) You asked for it, and here it is, part 2 of the tale of Dajar Stalks-the-Shadows.  
  
Dajar Stalks-the-Shadows hadn't expected it to be this easy. Sam had dropped him back off to get his corvette about an hour earlier and fifteen minutes ago, he'd finally found the place. Just another nondescript apartment building amongst a long row of nondescript apartment buildings. Such was usually the case amongst big cities. And Chicago was definitely a big city.  
  
First of all, there had been no security. Oddly enough for a vampire's haven, you'd expect there to be a ton of ghouls running around with heavy weaponry stuffed under their coats. But he'd not encountered a one. Second, after a careful examination, he hadn't discovered an alarm system, not even a neighborhood watch stick plastered to the large double doors that led into the lobby. That either meant this brujah was a complete dumbass...or he was powerful enough he didn't need any of that stuff. Personally Dajar hoped for the first option, it made his job a lot easier.  
  
With a shrug, Dajar walked calmly through the lobby, garnering a disinterested glance from the desk attendant, a pretty young brunette woman in her mid-twenties. He caught her eye and she offered a weak smile before going back to reading her romance novel.  
  
Dajar came to the far wall where a bank of elevators were set in, a row of steely silver rectangles against a backdrop of tedious white. Gaia, didn't humans have any imagination?  
  
The door opened right when Dajar hit the up arrow button and he got in, the elevator was like the rest of the place-sterile with white walls and a red carpet same as the lobby. With a sigh, he pressed the fourth floor button. He'd be happy when he finally got done and back to Samantha's for...payment. Just the thought made him smile.  
  
Soon enough there was a ding and the doors opened onto a long hallway, same red carpeting, same white walls, doors across from each other numbered alternately even and odd. Dajar reached into his pocket as he walked down the hallway. Pulling out the sheet of paper, he noted the room number and put it back in his pocket.  
  
The shadowcat stopped about halfway down the hall at a door that seemed like all the others save for the numbers slanting down on the top that read 427.  
  
Here goes nothing...Dajar thought. He reached inside himself and let down all the restraints, letting the beast rise to the surface, quite literally of course. Dark gray fur rapidly covered his swelling muscles and bones melted and reformed. Teeth became fangs and nails became claws. Soon enough he was 8'2" 500 lbs. of lean, lithe muscle with a cat's head atop his massive shoulders. That done, he "knocked". Interesting term for it really as the door shattered inward, wrenched free of its hinges to land with a crash on the red (who could have guessed) carpeted floor.  
  
The door opened into a well furnished living room with a kitchen off to the right. Down a hall, through a partially opened door he saw dresser with a tv on it in front of the bed. From another door out rushed a man clad only in jeans and holding a shotgun. He had short, though scruffy brown hair, brown eyes and a strong featured face. Without his shirt, sinewy muscles on his arms and a sixpack on his stomach made it obvious he worked out.  
  
"Malcolm! We got a monster out here! Hurry up!" the man called. A moment later a muscular, dreadlocked black man with a thin beard and goatee on a suavely handsome face burst out of the bedroom, clad too only in jeans, but holding what Dajar recognized as a .50 Desert Eagle AE magnum.  
  
"Freeze!" Malcolm yelled. As Dajar had already started to move, he was frozen, stopped cold. Despite every effort of his heavily muscled body, he couldn't even blink.  
  
No Brujah Dajar had ever met could stop him with a word! It was then that he realized with a sniff (thank goodness he could still do that much...) that these weren't vampires at all, but humans. Then it dawned on him...hunters.  
  
"Hunters!" He snarled as much, his voice inhumanly deep and his catlike muzzle having a bit of a problem with human speech.  
  
"Yeah what of it?" the as of yet unnamed human asked with a bit of arrogance in his tone as he walked up to Dajar and put the barrel of his shotgun right underneath the shadowcat's chin. Dajar gulped. "My name's Brent Walker, not that it will matter to you, monster!" He spat this last word. "I just want to know why you decided to break in here and try and kill us." Brent demanded. Dajar Stalks-the-Shadows could feel anger rising within him, like a red-hot furnace quickly becoming white-hot.  
  
"Vampires. Here. Supposed to be." He managed to get out through his feline muzzle. Brent's eyes narrowed as he regarded the massive cat-man frozen in mid pounce by Malcolm's hunter edge.  
  
"There're no vampires in here. We just killed a few off a couple days ago, some faggy guys in an art museum. "  
  
This was new. Dajar allowed himself to melt down into his homid form, though he still couldn't move.  
  
"Wait a minute, faggy guys in an art museum?" Dajar said. Toreadors, he thought...Sam had obviously lied to him to get him to come and kill these guys. Though he couldn't say as he blamed her, she was a vampire after all, but it still raised his hackles. All she had to do was ask, as she was one of the few undead that he was actually kind of fond of.  
  
"Hey what's going on out here?" A voice thick with sleepiness called out. A woman every bit as beautiful as Samantha walked out of a door Dajar couldn't see. Long brown hair fell to her shoulders framing emerald eyes, aquiline features and full pouty lips. A white bathrobe was pulled loosely about her, exposing one long graceful leg and a bit of full cleavage as she moved out. She stopped upon seeing Dajar and the door laying on the floor.  
  
"What the hell happened out here?" She demanded, instantly coming awake.  
  
"This stupid bastard busted in here all big and furry and Malcolm froze his dumb ass to the ground." Brent summarized.  
  
Dajar sighed. "Look, I'm not going to hurt all of you. I was hired to kill a vampire of the Brujah clan, if that means anything to you. Not to kill a bunch of hunters. Now assuming you don't try to ice me, I think we can just get along." The woman walked up to him, ushering Brent to the side, and stood close to enough to kiss, striking eyes baring into his as if trying to stare through him into his soul.  
  
"You were sent to kill a vampire? Do you still want to kill one? Or lots? I understand you werecreatures happen to rather dislike rots..er excuse me, vampires." Her voice was a low husky whisper, as if she were trying to seduce him.  
  
"Yeah, I still want to kill one." Dajar replied, thinking of what he would do if he got his hands on Samantha, or rather more specifically the one who tricked her into believing the story she'd told him enough to where the gift he'd learned that allowed him to sense the truth hadn't warned him it was a lie.  
  
"Well, I'll make you a deal." The woman said in that same husky whisper. "We won't fill you full of silver if you help us with something we're planning to do tomorrow."  
  
Dajar growled. He didn't cater to being threatened.  
  
"I've got a better idea. I'll help you, but because I want to get back at the bastards that sent me into something where I could've died if I wasn't careful. However if you ever threaten me again, I'll remove your head and mount it on my wall, capisce?" He said in a low whisper that matched hers.  
  
She looked up at him with a feral grin and a gleam in her emerald orbs. "I think we've reached a deal, Malcolm, let him go." She said aloud to the other two. And just like that, Dajar was free to move. He didn't though, burying the urge to take the war form and kill them all. The shadowcat had promised to help them and he was a man of his word.  
  
"I am called Dajar Stalks-the-Shadows among my kind." He said to the gathered group of hunters. "I'm Hope." The woman introduced herself. "You already know Brent and Malcolm."  
  
"Thanks to you, we need a new place to stay, because if the rots already know about this one, it ain't safe anymore." Malcolm said, his voice a deep bass rumble.  
  
"I can help with that..." Dajar said. "I got a temporary apartment about 20 minutes away. I hadn't planned on staying in town for long but I've already paid a months rent."  
  
"Do the rots know where you live?" Hope asked suspiciously.  
  
"Not that I know of." Dajar said. "I had my contact meet me at a nightclub for just that reason." Brent smiled flashing straight, white teeth like some advertisement for toothpaste.  
  
"And if he's lying, I'll just pump him full of silver buckshot." Both Hope and Dajar glared at him but Malcolm chuckled.  
  
"Agreed then, give us a few minutes to gather our stuff and then lead the way, Stalker of shadows, or whatever it is you prefer to be called." Hope said.  
  
"Dajar, will do fine." He said in response. And so twenty minutes later,when they all came out dressed in casual wear and long black dusters, each carrying a suitcase, a duffel bag or both, he did indeed lead the way out to his car,wondering if he'd made the right decision to not kill them when he had the chance...  
  
Stay tuned loyal fans for Ch 3. Same Dajar time, same dajar chann-errr, website... 


End file.
